Mother's Day!

Mom, do NOT read this blog post!  I MEAN IT!

The Paper Source is currently having a Mother's Day card competition on Facebook.  Submissions are closed, and the winners are going to be chosen by popular vote, so I don't have my hopes set too high, but you can vote for my submission on Facebook, and I can always dream.  I didn't have a whole lot of time to make it, since I was away (visiting my Mommy instead of crafting for her) for the end of April, and didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. In any case, I do like my card a lot, and it's currently on its way to Canada.

Materials:
 - A2 foldover card in PS Poppy
 - vellum paper
 - paper in PS Blossom for the mum petals; PS Beet for the mum center
 - vine ribbon by the yard from PS for leaves
 - my favourite American Crafts rub-on letters -- this one is "Molly" in charcoal. I love these letter rub-ons.
 - VersaMark ink
 - Zing! embossing powder in blush
 - Paper Source mum (as in, chrysanthemum) stamp

One of my main problems whenever I make a card is with the background; plain paper is too boring for me, but patterned paper is too busy and takes away from the main decoration.  For this card, I stamped mums semi-randomly over the paper with VersaMark watermark ink, used a heating tool to darken, and fit the coloured flower directly over one in the background--you can kind of see it (maybe) if you click on the full version.  It's like my mom standing out amongst other moms, hey! Metaphors.

While I was visiting, Mom actually decided she wanted a (badly needed) electric kettle replacement for Mother's Day, so now my brother owes me $20. But I had already thought of something I wanted to make for her: a towel roll cover. My mom usually sleeps with a hand towel rolled up to act as a neck bolster, to alleviate pressure on her neck while lying down.  I think normal bolster pillows are too large for this purpose, and the nice thing about a towel is that you can just wash it and get a fresh one whenever you want.  Plus, when she travels, she can grab a towel from the hotel washroom to use, or from my linen closet when she visits.  I thought of making a nice cover for her, that she could wash just as easily as a towel and pack easily when she travels, but felt nice and silky and looked pretty.

Et voilà‎!

A towel roll cover amongst my messy work space.  Roll up the towel, roll that up in this cover, then use the elastics at the ends to secure the cloth in place.  I didn't think of taking a picture of it in action, and I didn't photograph the illustrated instructions I drew, and now the entire package is somewhere between here and Vancouver, sorry!

Construction of this was quite simple: cut two pieces of pre-shrunken, easy-care cotton fabric 15" by 17" large, and two pieces of elastic about 7.5" long.  Baste the elastics as a loop, to the right side of one long edge, with raw edges matching.  Sew the 2 pieces right side together using a 1/2" seam allowance, and leaving a hole for turning.  Turn out, poke out the corners (FYI pointy chopsticks are great for this purpose), iron, then edge stitch all around.

Edge stitching is my new favourite technique--I don't bother slip stitching turning holes, and it looks so clean when I use my edgestitch foot.

The labels are really old--I got them when I was a kid, and my mom found them recently, so when I left Vancouver, I left with that package, as well as the Olfa mat and cutter she doesn't use any more.  I would love to get more, so if anybody knows of a good place to get nice, woven labels, please let me know!  Seems like the ones I can find online are either printed, or can only be ordered in multiples of 100.